Not a particularly productive weekend, but that’s OK. Friday night we met folks at Remington Grill at Crossroads for dinner (oof – bad idea), then went to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Arizona. One of the better HP movies, I think, and Cuaron’s directing was a vast improvement over Chris Columbus’ soft touch. There were many, many nice touches with the camerawork (the mirror in the first session with the boggart, Hedwig’s flight showing the passing of time) that made this movie so much of an improvement. Plus, there necessary condensation of plot was handled reasonably well, with only a few clunkers (like it would have been nice to actually explain who Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs were). Oy, but that werewolf. Ugh. Anyway, it was good overall, and I look forward to see what Mike Newell can make of Goblet of Fire.

On Saturday we bummed around the house a bit and watched some Tivo, then went over to me_not_you and wildmouse‘s place for dinner with friends. Much fun, grillables, and champagne were had. Sunday was even less motivated, though we got some work done on MFF-related stuff.

I’ve got a bunch of phone calls to make today in preparation to my drive up to Chicago this week. I need to make contact with some other temp agencies and see what else I can get going. One nice possibility: meeting the plant manager with the Ringwood job for lunch, outside of the rigid interview environment. That would be really cool, if the recruiter can actually set it up. I had originally planned on coming up Wednesday, but I just got a phone call from the recruiter with the Kernersville job; they want to meet with me at 11 AM on Thursday. Quick change of plans – I’ll be leaving from that meeting and driving part of the way to Chicago that day. Not sure where I’ll crash for the night just yet, but there is no way I could leave by 1 PM and get to Chicago at a reasonable hour. Hmm, work to be done there…

So while we’re up in Chicago, we’ll definitely be there for the LAFF softball game, and of course the staff meeting. I’ll have to work out exactly how long I’ll be staying up there, possibly through Thursday. Hmm, if I came down to Chambana Thursday, think you could put me up for the night, mirkowuff? After all, I need to see how the new waitron is working out for y’all at Happy Hour…

So, I spent several fruitless hours yesterday trying to get my wireless networking working properly. I picked up a Netgear MA521wireless adapter at Staples (hey, $10 after rebate? Yeah, I’ll take that) and discovered that it couldn’t see the wireless access point we have in the basement. After some rearranging, a little rewiring, and a minor injury, I was able to put the access point in the kitchen, where it should provide a nice, strong signal sine it’s about ten feet from where I usually sit. Well, one would think, anyway. My network connection was dropping all over the place, and after screwing with it for a few hours I finally gave up and went back to a wire. Judging from the fact that the link light on the card seemed to go on and off at random (independently of whether I had connectivity or not), I’m suspecting it’s a driver conflict of some variety. I also note that some reviews indicated that the newest revision of the MA521 switched from the industry-standard Prism II chipset to a RealTek chipset; that’s another possible source of problems. Oddly enough, it works fine on takaza‘s laptop, which is good since he was using a Netgear MA111 USB wireless adapter but due to wear and tear, one of the two USB ports on his laptop broke. Rather than risk the other port, he’ll just use the card. (I’d use the MA111 on my laptop, but all I get is random BSD’s and reboots. What fun!)

Bleah.

So, we also tried making Alton Brown’s fried plantain recipe last night (aka tostones). This was my first attempt at cooking with plantains. The recipe was good, but I learned something very important: the riper plantains get, the more banana-like flavor they develop. The recipe calls for green plantains but by the time I got around to preparing them, the plantains we had were more yellow than green. I cooked them up and while they tasted OK, the combination of a faint banana aftertaste and garlic was…off-putting. And after eating a couple of them, just plain unappetizing. It would be worth trying again, but I’d make sure that the plantains were green next time. Also, they could really be improved by a dipping sauce of some variety. Blue Corn Cafe in Durham make a fabulous mango dipping sauce to go with their fried plantain chips; I’ll have to investigate something like that.

We’re going tonight to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Absalom. Word has it that Goblet of Fire will be out in November of next year. I know what we’re doing the Monday after MFF 2005!

<Cue the Imperial March>

As promised here is the recipe and procedures for Donald’s Imperial Stout.

So here we are. The latest news on the employment front is that there isn’t much to report, sadly. A quick rundown of currently open possibilities:
– Abbott filled the Validation Auditor position, so the contract position in Chicago is on hold until a new position comes available (which, I’m told, occurs on a daily basis)
– Honeywell in Moncure, NC is still waffling about when to bring people in to interview (need to follow up with them today)
– A recruiter mentioned a possibility between Akron and Cleveland, OH several weeks back, but I can’t reach him to follow up. Try again today.
– The position in Ringwood, IL is on hold as well, trying to find out why. I e-mailed the recruiter just now.
– A possibility just popped up in Kernersville, NC that I might be receiving a call on soon. Not sure how I feel about that (we’re talking between Winston-Salem and Greensboro), but hey, it’s a job.
– Finally there’s an interesting position in epoxy resins that a recruiter floated by me yesterday in Houston, TX. See prior comment re: location.

Such is life these days – a lot of maybes, and not much else. Oh well, I just keep trying.

So, the big deal this coming weekend is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Ashkenazy. Takaza wants to see it opening night, so we’re going to maybe get together with some friends and check it out. Not much else planned for the weekend, though, which is kind of nice.

Next week, pending any new job developments, I’ll be driving up to Chicago in preparation for the Midwest FurFest staff meeting on Sunday the 13th. Hopefully I’ll be able to make a couple more contacts with temp agencies while I’m up there, and maybe even put together a Western Suburbs Dinner. We shall see…

Set the wayback machine to…Friday? Hardly seems worth the trip, does it? Ah well…

And thus begins the 2004 Furry Memorial Day Gathering at Casa di Canine (Temporary Location)

Yes, I’ll be writing up something about Memorial Day weekend, which was a world of fun. But in the meantime, I wanted to write this down:

As I was driving around today, I listened to a couple of tracks by The Flash Girls on my MP3 player. Their music is/was a delightful blend of gothic folk that is really fun, with lyrics by luminaries like Dorothy Parker and Neil Gaiman. One-half of The Flash Girls is Emma Bull, who is one of my favorite writers. Her best book is War for the Oaks, a stories of a war between the Faerie courts that takes place in modern Minneapolis. It was through her writing that I found Boiled in Lead (my favorite Celtic-rock-and-whatever band) and Cats Laughing (another musical venture by Emma, which included author Steven Brust as well), among others. Emma was also one of the authors featured in the Borderlands anthology, a well-written exploration of what might happen at the border of Elfland and the mundane world, a sort of magical Tijuana, which served to introduce me to several other excellent writers: Ellen Kushner (whose Swordspoint is just gorgeous!), Will Shetterly (Emma’s husband), Terri Windling, and others.

So – I read and listened to all of these years ago. I decided to see what is going on these days. It looks like another Borderlands book came out that I need to track down, as well as another Flash Girls album. Ellen Kushner is still hosting Sound and Spirit, which is just an amazing anthology of music of all genres – and even has old shows available for listening online!

The most interesting thing, though was when I did some web searches to see what Terri Windling has been up to. This led to The Endicott Studio, a site devoted to mythic art – myth, folklore, fairy tales, and their use in contemporary arts. What an amazing site! From the Journal to the Bulletin Boards to the Gallery and Coffeehouse – so many of my favorite authors and artists are there, and there’s so much wonderful information and stories. It’s going to take me a while to read through all of it, but I’m really glad I found the site (and yes, this is me being a fanboy. Deal 🙂

Then there’s the capper: This weekend in Atlanta is Mythic Journeys – a collection of authors, academicians, philosophers, and artists discussing the role of myth in society and everyday life. Wow. Just wow. It’s a pity that registration starts at $475 for the weekend – this ain’t no SF convention, by any means! Still, it would be very cool to attend, even if half the discussion flew straight over my head (hey, I’m an engineer, not a philosopher).

So you see, this is what happens when you listen to an album you haven’t heard in a while!

Something for everyone! (now with 100% less Friends-Page spammage)

When did Al Gore grow a pair?

If only he’d shown some of this gumption four years ago…

I really need to remember that too much Tilex in an enclosed space really sucks. I decided to take a break after gassing myself with the stuff yesterday and I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped. No problem, I’ll just be busy today. That’s probably good; it keeps my mind off other things, like whether the phone will ring or not.

In other news, this song absolutely rocks! Jennifer Saunders (yes, that Jennifer Saunders, sweetiedarling) can sing!

So, I called the recruiter yesterday about the Abbott position; my “file has been re-opened” by Abbott and they’re just waiting to hear back. Given that I was told there were still two (of the original four) validation auditor positions still open, I was kind of hoping they’d jump on this. Evidently not. Does this mean I’ll be around for Memorial Day weekend? Well, not necessarily. About the only thing it means is that I won’t be driving up to Chicago today. All it takes is a phone call, though, and I may be driving up tomorrow. Or Thursday. The upshot is that I won’t know what’s going on for the weekend until Wednesday afternoon. What fun. In the meantime, I’m working under the assumption that I’ll be around and prepare accordingly.

And by the way, I’m not anal-retentive, really.

Richard Biggs (Dr. Stephen Franklin from Babylon 5) passed away suddenly on Saturday. He was a talented actor and by all accounts a very personable fellow. He will be missed.

(On Bush’s bicycle accident Saturday)
Bush was wearing his bike helmet and a mouth guard when the mishap occurred.[White House spokesman Trent] Duffy said he didn’t know exactly how the accident happened.

“It’s been raining a lot and the topsoil is loose,” the spokesman said. “You know this president. He likes to go all out. Suffice it to say he wasn’t whistling show tunes.”

Translation:
President Bush is not a faggot. He’s more butch than you’ll ever be.

It’s so nice to know that throwaway bigotry is a part of every day press briefings.
Hey, how about, “Suffice it to say he wasn’t eating watermelon and fried chicken.”? Or maybe, “Suffice it to say he wasn’t wearing any sombreros.” That’d be a real thigh-slapper, too.

Because, you know, gay people wouldn’t ride a mountain bike, any more than black or Hispanic people would. What the fuck?

A commentary on one of the North Carolinas Republican candidates for Congress, courtesy of the ever-droll Mr. Sun:

Methinks thou doth protest too much!

Vernon Robinson sure has homosexuals on his mind! He seems to think of little else. In fact, I don’t know anyone who thinks about homosexuals as much as Vernon does, including homosexuals. On a single page from his website, Vernon talks about, and I quote:

–radical homosexuals
-homosexual terrorists
–militant homosexuals
-gay scoutmasters
-homosexual in a pup tent with your thirteen year-old son -homosexual sodomy
-want(ing) to give Barney Frank a Maalox Moment

It sounds to Mr. Sun like Vernon might want to give Barney Frank something milky, but perhaps not Maalox. Well, let me put it in limerick form. Everything is best as a limerick, wouldn’t you agree?

There once was a man named Vernon
Who hid his unnatural yearnin’
The more he pretended
The more he suspended
The fire in his loins a-burnin’

So, I got word today: they chose someone else for the job in Kentucky. Oh, they still have to make the offer, it could be turned down, the door isn’t closed, blah blah blah. Yes it is conceivably possible that they might come back to me. Is it anything I’ll predicate any decisions on? I think not.

So, couple that with the fact that the two job possibilities locally are moving so slowly that they have ceased to be a factor, we’re left with Plan B. I still need to get final word on a date, but sometime within the next week or two I’ll be up in Chicago interviewing with Abbott Labs for a contract position as Validation Auditor. That would only run through the end of the year, but it gets some money coming in and gives me some time to get my feet under me (and kills that question I always hear: What have you been doing since you lost your job in October of 2002?).

Should I get that job, things are going to get interesting: it would mean setting up two households, at least temporarily until takaza can transfer up to the Chicago area. I’m still exploring housing possibilities, both short and long term – right now I just don’t have enough information or certainty to go very far with that, though. We’re going to wind up having to make some big decisions fairly quickly, but we’ve done it in the past, and we can do it again.

Lots of fun over the last few days.

On Friday I got a surprise phone call from a recruiter I had spoken to some time ago. He had a job possibility – just a possible position, which leads me to think that the position hasn’t even been vacated yet – that he wanted to know if I was interested in. He said it was in Ringwood, Illinois, at which point I told him exactly what company it was. See, Ringwood is this tiny town located about five minutes from takaza‘s mom’s house that really only has one company there. I’ve driven past it many times and thought how great it would be if I could get a job there. I sent the recruiter an email explaining that it would be close to family and friends, as well as close to Dan’s company’s home office (so he could easily transfer) and stressed that this was an ideal location. Those of you who have followed my journal for any period of time know that there’s a whole lot that can wrong between this point and even getting an interview, so I’m certainly sure not going to make any plans based on this. It was a nice phone call, anyway.

That night we had dinner with some old, very dear friends of mine who I hadn’t seen in six or seven years, Vickie and David Broyles. Vickie was the first person I ever told I was gay, and has always been a wonderful friend. I’m so glad that we were able to reconnect, and it was great to see her and David again. I was a little nervous because I hoped that Dan got along with them, but I needn’t have worried – he and Vickie really hit it off while David and I talked shop. We had a tasty dinner al fresco at Spartacus, and ended the evening with a nice chat back at their hotel. I hope we’ll be seeing them again soon, and that we’ll be able to play hosts!

Saturday featured a god-awful early wakeup: 5:30 AM. Like we did two years ago, we assisted Dan’s employer’s golf outing by playing the all-important role of Refreshment Cart Drivers. The course had new carts this year which could only take one cooler at a time, so we each drove a cart and pretty much just drove laps around the golf course all morning providing soda and really bad beer to the golfers. Still, it was good fun, even if some of the experience was lost by having to use separate carts where we couldn’t really chat as we went. The one thing I’m really glad for is buying sunscreen – we would have gotten completely toasted if we hadn’t slathered the stuff on first thing in the morning.

That evening, we were joined by me_not_you and wildmouse for dinner at Patronies (where we learned that when it comes to pizza and salads, they make a pretty good calzone). We retired back to the house and watched some Tivo then they headed home as we were all falling asleep in our chairs.

I went over to help Donald bottle/keg beer on Sunday (and I didn’t confiscate those bottles, they cried out to be liberated!) and we made plans to brew up the next batch or two of beer – possibly on Memorial Day, if our guests are interested. After that we went up to Gino’s for a tasty lunch. They left for gaming, and Dan and I bummed around the house for the afternoon, before making a quick trip to the store for groceries. We had a nice quiet evening and generally relaxed.

So, this week: I’m going to head down to my parents’ place tomorrow and hang out there until Thursday morning. If the stars align properly, I may even pop over to Athens and have lunch with rasslor. Also of note: I should know the decision on the job in Kentucky by the end of the week. As soon as I know what’s up there, I’ll be sure to pass it along. Well, off to pay some bills…

I have a recap of the weekend to write still today, but in the meantime: These eyewitness accounts of the crowds at Cambridge, Massachusetts brought a tear to my eye.

“The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come.”
– Prior Walter, Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika by Tony Kushner

Can you hear me now, bitch?

So I posted this little lyrics quiz a few days ago. Now let’s review the answers.
Cut added to prevent Friends Page spammage

CBS greenlights The Amazing Race 6 for later this year or summer 2005. Yay! (Link courtesy of TVTattle)

An inside look at the pilots in store for the fall season, with suitably snarky commentary. (Link courtesy of TVTattle)

Do you like kites? Takaza got a cool catalog in the mail from Into the Wind – they have a fabulous collection of kites for sale at surprisingly low prices. Once we have some disposable income, I plan on grabbing a couple of thse beauties.

Manitoban town’s ATM closes down, leaving the closest bank services nine hours away by car, or three days by bus. (Link courtesy of Fark)

The Webby Award winners have been announced. Not that I particularly care, but it is a neat way to find cool websites you might never have come across before, like Map24 and ZeD.

What do you mean, you don’t read with_gusto? Click on over there! You’ll be glad you did.

On a completely unrelated note, I am totally grooving on these Was (Not Was) remixes.

So I’m a bit late in getting around to this meme, but here’s the deal (I’m stealing this version from atara):
This is a twist on the music meme. Load up your entire music directory/s into your player of choice, spin it to random, and list a random line from each song. Then you, fair reader, get to guess what each song is! There are 20 songs below, from a weird variety of genres. Post your guesses in the comments.

Here we go!

Here’s a couple of interesting links I’ve come across over the last few days!

Music Plasma – a “music visual search engine,” this is really fun to play with. Enter your favorite artist and it shows similar artists, with their relative similarity, popularity, and styles all shown graphically. A very fun toy.

Here is a fantastic way to measure the speed of light at home using marshmallows and a microwave oven. This is a brilliant bit of DIY physics.

To wander over into the political, I’ll point you to my favorite lefty weblogs: Eschaton, Pandagon.net, and corrente. I’d point to some righty weblogs except that, well, I’m not a righty and have no interest in reading them. Others are welcome to and post about it in their journal, though!

Well, that was a lovely weekend. We were graced by the presence of zenwolph, and we did…well, we didn’t do much, and that was kind of nice. Zen came in late Friday night and we stayed up entirely too late chatting. After a far-too early wakeup on Saturday (curse my internal alarm clock!), we ventured out, with our first stop being an introduction to geocaching for Zen. A relatively easy find, and I was finally able to drop off the travel bug that I picked up from awfulhorrid and chouette about eight months ago. Um, whoops. After that, we stopped by The Q Shack for some delicious barbeque (love their Texas-style sauce!), then wandered around Beast Buy a bit and picked up a new wireless adapter. Unfortunately, I found later in the weekend that for some reason this adapter doesn’t play well with something on my laptop and just…quits at random intervals, the only recovery being a full reboot. So that’s going back to the store this week.

We came back and lounged around a bit, watching an episode of Wolf’s Rain and the final Iron Chef America episode. Feeling the need to break the inertia, we wandered over to the newly-reopened-from-bankruptcy FunWerks where Zen and Takaza played a little DDR and we watched the go-karts for a bit. We didn’t actually get in on it because the lines were just too long, but we’ll be going back sometime soon, I suspect. Afterwards, we stopped by a Patronie’s Pizza to pick up dinner. This of course fueled Harry-Potter-inspired puns about waiting for the pizza guy: Expecto Patronies! Yeah, yeah, groan all you want 🙂

Sunday was a nice slow start, with another episode of Wolf’s Rain and just hanging out and chatting (and laptop geeking – those of you who have visited us before know how surprising that is!). We grabbed lunch at Abbey Road Tavern and Grill (mmm, their Ringo burger is tasty, but someone deserves a swift kick in the head for that nasty stuff they’re serving as garlic mashed potatoes), then it was time to see Zen off for Richmond. As always, it was lovely having him down and we look forward to next time!

We took a short nap after that and then I made an extremely tasty pound cake (I can post the recipe if anyone wants). me_not_you and wildmouse came over and we watched the Survivor: All-Stars finale. Well, I was pulling for Rupert, but I would have been happy with Jenna, even. It seems the two winning strategies are either screw everyone in sight or fly under the radar, though the former is exceedingly difficult to pull off and is almost always trumped by the latter when it comes to the Final Two. It wasn’t the least-satisfying ending I’ve seen on Survivor, but it ranked pretty far down. (And those who would comment about how virtuous you are and what an awful show Survivor is: you are cordially invited to piss off) I look forward to the premiere of The Amazing Race 5 on July 6; it’s by far our favorite reality show and a heck of a lot of fun to watch.

Several phone calls to make today, jobs to be applied to, and catch up on a bit of housework. Hope everyone’s week is just fabulous!

So the trip to Chicago was somewhat fruitful, I’d say. I made some good contacts, and have a line on some possible contract work with Abbott Laboratories. We’ll see if anything comes of that. Meanwhile, there’s still Amfine and Static Controls, either of which could call and offer me a job, and Honeywell, who I should be hearing if they want me to come in for an interview sometime this week. So, as usual, stuff is still up in the air.

When I last wrote anything of note, I was about to head off to Froggy’s for dinner with Linnaeus and Datahawk.

Wow, what an amazing meal! Click for details…

Once again, I screwed up this morning while looking at my watch. I hit the wrong button and changed the time zone back to Eastern time, unbeknownst to me. Which is why, after going to bed at midnight, I got up at 4:15 to shower and hit the road.

Ow.

But anyway, 12 hours later, I found myself back home in North Carolina. Thanks to all of our wonderful friends for making this a great trip, and thanks to mirkowuff for providing crash space for me on the way up and back and especially to feren – your house is fabulous, your cat is strange (but likeable), and your guest beds exceedingly comfy. Your hospitality was very much appreciated!

My wonderful wolf has made homemade mac and cheese for dinner, which I intend to consume in large quantities, then fall into bed.

Mmm, wouldn’t be too bad an idea to grab the wolf on the way into bed…

Updating LiveJournal is kind of a hit-and-miss proposition when you’re on the road…

When last I updated, I was writing from a Panera in Glen Ellyn, IL, last Friday, about to pick up my lovely and talented husband. I was able to pick him up from O’Hare without any problem, and we met up with Linnaeus soon afterwards. Some nice relaxing was done, then we sought out dinner. Unfortunately, we found that the Glen Ellyn Sports Bar (nee Glen Ellyn Brewery) was closed, so we opted for large hunks of dead cow at Outback. Afterwards, we parted ways and Takaza and I headed down to Z’ha’dum (aka feren‘s lovely home). His guest accommodations are quite nice and after some nice chatting, we crashed for the evening.

Saturday found us meeting Dan’s mom for lunch at The Curragh in Schaumburg (mmmm, fish and chips!). Feren’s exam wrapped up early so he joined us for a bit of socializing there. Afterwards, it was back to Z’ha’dum for the Gathering of the, uh, Group. Or something. It was great fun to hang out with Roho, Genet, Mirkowuff, Linnaeus, and Datahawk, and all but the latter two wound up back at Z’ha’dum for the evening (and neuracnu stumbled in very late in the evening as well).

Sunday: A brunch featuring great company, good food and bad service at a restaurant near the Hyatt Woodfield. A quick trip by Ikea to meet Linnaeus’ mom, who is there doing a demonstration with Canine Companions for Independence, then over to the hotel for the MFF meeting. All goes well, though the after-meeting chitchat runs long. Portillo’s afterwards so takaza can get his Italian beef fix, then an early bedtime.

Monday we were up at 4 AM. Ugh. I took Takaza to O’Hare, where I learned that there are entirely too damn many people on the road in Chicago at 5:15 AM. Dropped Dan off with minimal problems, then came back and crashed for a short nap. Once I got mobile again, I was surprised by a phone call that turned into a quick phone interview for Honeywell Performance Fibers, at their location in Moncure, NC (15 minutes from Apex). Additionally, I spoke with a recruiter who had an interesting proposition: he wanted to shop my resume with NuFarm, a company that is looking for someone to help manage their worldwide toll manufacturing operations. I’m a bit skeptical about whether I have the credentials for this kind of position, but it sounds like one that would be exciting and well worth pursuing. I’ll be interested to hear back and see how that goes. Monday evening was spent in the company of partran. We wandered around downtown Elmhurst, had dinner at a tasty “pan-Asian” place, and shared some nice conversation.

Today hasn’t been particularly productive. I stopped by Meijer earlier and picked up a couple of things, including a pair of pants and a shirt that are somewhat presentable. I have a meeting with an employment agency in Vernon Hills at 3 PM to discuss short-term employment possibilities in the Chicago area. After that, I’ll be picking up Datahawk from work and we’ll hang around a bit, then meet Linnaeus for dinner at Froggy’s. I’m looking forward to it, since I haven’t had a decent French meal in ages.

Well, gotta check my laundry, then head on out!

So, here are my plans for the next week and a half or so:
Wednesday, 4/21 – Leave Apex, NC, around 7 AM EDT, drive to Hopkinsville, KY, arriving around 5 PM CDT.

Thursday, 4/22 – Interview at Amfine Chemicals at 10 AM, to last 2-3 hours. After interview, drive to Urbana, IL and spend the night with a radiowuff.

Friday, 4/23 – Work my way up to Chicago, arriving sometime before rush hour. Kill some time until 9 PM, when I pick up takaza at O’Hare. Retreat to Z’ha’dum, whose kind owner will be putting us up for the duration.

Saturday, 4/24 – Morning/afternoon spent with Takaza’s mom. Plans in flux for the evening, but will probably end up bowling with the LAFF folk (RSVP to come, Butterscotchvix!)

Sunday, 4/25 – Midwest FurFest staff meeting. Small dinner with friends afterwards, and early bedtime.

Monday, 4/26 – Take Takaza to O’Hare in time for his 6:51 AM flight. Argh.

Rest of week, through Thursday, 4/29 – Look for jobs in the Chicago area. Short-term, contract, whatever I can find.

Friday, 4/30 – Drive back to Apex, NC. Collapse. Prepare to return to Chicago if hunt has been successful.

Wow, a week since my last update. I’m slack.

Most of last week was spent fighting off the Martian Death Flu or whatever the heck it was that attacked takaza and I. My fever finally broke on Tuesday, but I still have a cough that I can’t shake. During the day it’s not so bad, but I learned the hard way that I still need a good dose of Tussionex to get me through the night.

The most interesting news of the week came when I got a call on Tuesday from out of the blue by a company within 30 minutes of here. They found my resume on Monster and wanted to know if I could come in for an interview on Wednesday. I did, and it looks like a really good job. To be honest, I haven’t said much about it (and won’t) because I don’t want to get my hopes up too much. If it comes through, great, but I’m going to work on the assumption that it won’t. I also had a phone interview with James Hardie Building Materials (makers of HardiePlank, for those of you who know something about construction). They have a position available in Peru, IL, that could be interesting, but to be honest I think it’s unlikely – not a very good fit. But I went through the motions and put on my best happy face; we’ll see if anything comes of it.

We went out for dinner Friday with me_not_you and wildmouse (so-so Japanese restaurant and steakhouse – they’re having they’re ‘grand re-opening’ with a new menu in a few weeks, so you can guess how that went) – at least the company was good. Saturday we bummed around a bit and ran a few errands, then got a surprise dinner invitation from Thomas and Sherry. We joined them and Echo and Richard for dinner at a tasty Mexican place, then relaxed after dinner by browsing through the ice cream shop/kitchy “Country” gift shop next door. Sunday was spent going over MFF stuff and doing the weekly grocery shopping.

So yesterday and today have been spent preparing for the upcoming road trip for which I leave tomorrow. More details about that in my next post.

Courtesy of Jesse Taylor over at pandagon.net:

Did anyone else notice that John Ashcroft got “evil biology” and “evil chemistry” out of the mothballs today?

I really missed the evil sciences…I was going to take a correspondence course in evil particle physics, but I didn’t have the money for the evil books. I do, however, have the evil acceptance letter.

Wow, and already the weekend is over. I spent the weekend indoors, while takaza was a sweetheart and took care of the grocery shopping on Saturday. My energy level has been a rock-bottom all weekend, and I’ve been nursing a fever off and on. Yuck. Takaza and I are both still coughing, though he seems to be doing a bit better.

So, how have we spent the day today? With a mixture of Happy Gilmore (ick), Total Recall, an episode of Good Eats, and now The Golden Child. I’ll be headed to bed soon – separate beds for us tonight, unfortunately, since otherwise we each trade off waking the other up with our coughing. This sucks immensely, but things should be back to normal in a day or two, I hope.

Well, I’m off to read a few pages of Kitchen Confidential, then fall off to sleep.

I suppose it’s bad when you wake up wondering what that horrible wheezing, gurgling noise is, and you realize it’s yourself.

I slept until 9 AM this morning, which tells you right there that I’m definitely not feeling right. Couple that with a low-grade temperature, a persistent cough, and a general achy feeling, well, I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere today. On the bright side, takaza‘s fever broke yesterday and he’s definitely feeling better, though he still is trying to shake the coughing. Thanks to everyone for their support and kind get-well wishes! I suspect this is just something that needs to run its course and then we’ll be back in the game.

We had a lovely time last night at wildmouse‘s champagne party – three delicious champagnes, a wonderful collection of appetizers for grazing, and topped off with delicious chocolates from Peche de Chocolat and Jacques Torres. The company was fantastic and the conversation amusing. I think we may have traumatized Dan’s cow-orker, but at the same time she seemed to take it all in stride.

And now, I’m going to lay down and take a nap, I think.

So, takaza has been fighting…something…for the last four or five days. It’s an upper respiratory infection of some variety, with lots of nasty coughing fits and a fever for four days running. He called the doctor today and they arranged fro some new meds. I hope they help.

Anyway, today I started to feel a bit woozy around noon, and by 3 PM I had a 101.3 degree fever. Joy. I went to the doctor and she prescribed some nice antibiotics and Tussionex for my periodic coughing (yay hydrocodone!). On top of that, she peered at my throat and ordered a test for mono. Double joy. Unfortunately, the doctors’ office is closed for the holiday tomorrow, I won’t know the results until Monday. On the bright side, we determined it’s not strep throat.

Wish I had better news to relate. Ah well, life goes on.

Subtle.

The Advocate has a couple of good articles, Talking Points About Marriage, Part One and Part Two, designed to help proponents of gay marriage familiarize themselves with the arguments involved and to help explain to others why this is such an important issue to gay and lesbian couples. Also, they have an outstanding article detailing an e-mail that a gay son wrote to his straight family members and friends, Dear Family: Why Marriage Matters To Me.

Blame atara and giza…

All about da Husky

Well, I’m feeling better than after my last post. Got the car back, they did what they were supposed to, and everything works OK. Good enough, though it still shouldn’t have happened to begin with.

So anyway, I’m taking a break while the dessert for ovrclokd‘s party tonight – a tasty flourless (well, almost) chocolate cake called Double Dark Chocolate Excess. I modified the recipe slightly – took out the almonds and almond extract. I also used my l33t geometry skillz to determine that a 10″ springform pan has apprxoimately 1.5 times the volume of an 8″ springform pan, and adjusted the recipe accordingly.

So, stuff going on this weekend: got friends coming over to hang out tomorrow night (I think – we’ll need to confirm with some folks when we see them tonight). Have lunch with some interesting folks on Sunday, then the Midwest FurFest staff meeting online that afternoon. Yay!

And now, some musings on furry conventions…

You know, I’ve been feeling pretty good through this whole unemployment period, but I’ve found that being stuck at home without a car is really getting me down.

Why am I without a car? Well, I dropped my 2001 Oldsmobile Alero off at the dealership on Wednesday morning because of a possible coolant leak. The car has only 43,000 miles on it, so it shouldn’t be doing that! Over the last three months I’ve had to add over a gallon of coolant (50/50 water and Dex-cool, the nasty orange stuff), though there’s been no sign of any leaks on the garage floor, nor any telltale smoke from the exhaust. Being a chemical engineer and knowing the concept of mass balances, I cleverly deduced that either my car’s engine had come up with a way of destroying matter (I’m rich!), or the leak was going somewhere else – a concept I really didn’t want to contemplate.

So, I dropped it off at the dealership (yay 60,000-mile warranty!) and hoped for the best. I got a hurried call Wednesday night saying that it was an “intake leak” and they were waiting for the gasket to come in, so it would be another day. Well, this sent me to the net to get a little better understanding of what’s going on. What do I find but GM’s dirty little secret: the lower intake manifold gasket is defective on all 3.1 and 3.4 liter V6 engines built by GM from 2000 – 2003 or so. I was extremely fortunate to have caught it this early, as once the coolant starts to leak into the engine block extensive corrosion and cylinder damage can result. I’m also very lucky that Oldsmobile slapped a 60,000 mile warranty to get people to buy their dying brand – this is about an $850 repair.

Of course, the fun doesn’t stop there. I got a call last night saying that they had replaced the gasket and while pressure testing the system discovered a leak in the water pump, so they’re going to replace that this morning. So, let’s add this to the list of parts replaced on this car, including the alternator, the ignition key cylinder (!), the left front wheel bearing, and the right front wheel bearing, as well as the turn signal switch, which was just recalled. You know what this tells me? I’m going to baby this sucker as much as I can, and if it all possible get rid of it right at 60,000 miles, because I sure don’t want to start paying through the nose when the rest of the car goes to hell. This is a lemon, plain and simple, though regrettably not in the state of NC’s sense of the word (yes, I checked the laws, believe me). I’ll not be buying a GM car again anytime soon.

So, theoretically, they’re going to fix it and give me a call this morning. Either they’ll come pick me up or I’ll get a lift to the dealership from me_not_you. I intend to double-check the part number of the gasket they used to fix it and make sure they used the new, improved gasket instead of just replacing it with one of the old, defective gaskets.

I’ve got more stuff to talk about – I’ll do that in my next post, after I shower.

When last we left our intrepid heroes, they were planning on a visit to Porter’s City Tavern on Friday night. We did indeed go (a party of eight, eventually) and the food was excellent. And reasonably-priced, too. I’d like to go back, though a few of our group mentioned tummy troubles afterwards. Odd – not sure if it was directly related, but still, not a happy thing. I had a duck lasagna with caramelized onions and spinach and goat cheese that was simply fabulous, and the chocolate-espresso crème brulee for dessert was excellent. It didn’t hurt that we all agreed that the owner, who was working the dining room most efficiently, was a complete babe. He had the most artfully-mussed hair, very cute.

Anyway. On Saturday, we had friends over for gaming and burgers, which was lots of fun. I was tired all evening so didn’t really join in the games, but it looked like folks were having a good time, so it’s all good. On Sunday we stopped by wildmouse‘s and she introduced us to the joy of Product (in the Queer Eye sense of the word). From there we went over to Crabtree Valley Mall and went on a small shopping spree. We picked up a nice facial scrub, a daily facial wash, facial toner, and moisturizer from The Body Shop, as well as a clay facial mask and a peppermint clay mask for the feet (heavenly!), then replenished our supply of shaving lotion at Bath Junkie – a mixture of forest pine and forest rain scents in this one, to replace the eye-watering eucalyptus one we first got (I still like that one, but it’s a bit strong for takaza). We also stopped by the gelato joint ad I officially put in my two-weeks’ notice. Yeah, I wimped out and cast it in terms of needing more time to find a job, but to be fair the owner was dealing with a couple of other crises and that just wasn’t the time to bring up some of the complaints I have. Maybe I’ll bring them up after I leave, I don’t know.

Yesterday was the one and only day I’m working this week – 6.5 hours of retail fun. Given that the bottom fell out of the temperatures yesterday (it barely made it up to 45 F, after having been in the 60’s), it was understandably slow. Still, with days like that, I can’t see that she’ll be keeping the doors open much longer.

So, we have the rest of the week. I’ll be spending more time on job-related stuff, and looking into what possibilities are available through the various temp agencies. It sucks, but it might just pay the bills. We’ll see what I can dig up.

As I’ve noted before, it’s hard to get too worked up about the weekend when you’re unemployed, but hey, I can fake it with the best of ’em. Besides, this means I get to see more of Takaza, and that’s never a bad thing!

So I had a phone interview with the company in Hopkinsville, Kentucky yesterday. It seemed to go well, as near as I can tell – I have a lot of what they’re looking for. I’ll know by the end of next week if they want to fly me in for an interview. It’s a really small company, only 45 employees. I’m guessing domestic partner benefits are pretty unlikely. However, we might could get Dan a job in Clarksville or Nashville, TN if we split the difference on the commutes. On the bright side, it’s a lot closer to a lot of our friends in the Midwest: 7 hours from Chicago, 5 hours from Chambana, 4 hours from St. Louis or Memphis.

I also got a call from a recruiter today. I swear, this must have been her first call to a candidate – she was working with a recruiter I know well, so I played along. But there were times when I just wanted to say, “Look, calm down, follow the script, and I’ll give you the answers you want.” It’s a position for a company “near the North Carolina/Virginia line” which means Martinsville, Danville, or South Boston. The first two would work, I suppose, but South Boston is the middle of nowhere. We’ll see if I hear anything back from that.

In between several errands today I stopped by a dog show going on at the State Fairgrounds. Interesting time. I swear, I saw every character from Best in Show there. I don’t think I’ll be going back to a dog show any time soon – it’s people spending too much time to make dogs behave in un-doglike fashion, make them conform to some arbitrary standard, and, quite frankly, the dogs didn’t look like they were having a good time. T’heck with that. I’d rather visit a Dog Park. At least there you can pet the dogs!

So tonight the plan is to meet the usual folks for dinner at Porter’s City Tavern. The reviews look good, so I’m looking forward to it. Plus, they have steak for Dan – that’s always a Good Thing.

I’m watching Margaret Cho‘s Notorious C.H.O. and she closes with this marvelous rant:

If you are a woman, if you are a person of color, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are person of intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world.

For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution. And our revolution is long overdue.

Oh, hell yeah.

If not, you’d better hustle! Uncle Kage says there’s only 26 rooms still available in the Adam’s Mark.

And so, after a long hiatus from actual content, we now return to our program, already in progress…

As I mentioned last week, I put in 40 hours at the gelato place. This yielded a few things:
1. A renewed hatred for all retail employment
2. A paycheck of all of $250 (gee, that’ll pay my car payment, yay)
3. A complete lack of progress in the job-hunting area due to being too busy scooping fancy ice cream

Needless to say, that was a waste of time and something I shan’t be repeating anytime soon.

Still haven’t heard anything from Closure Medical. Given that they told me it would be 2-4 weeks until I heard anything and it’s been more than four weeks, well, let’s just say I’m not expecting much from this. If I’m wrong I’ll be pleasantly surprised, but otherwise I’m going to assume it’s not going to happen and proceed accordingly.

I have a phone interview on Thursday with Amfine Chemicals in the metropolis of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. They’re looking for an expert in Yokogawa DCS; I’ve had training in it and even spent two weeks at their facility in Georgia taking courses…in 1999. I haven’t used it much since so I don’t have great hopes for this, but who knows? And hey, it’s convenient to both Nashville AND Paducah – boy howdy! (Uh, yeah)

Oh, and I had a phone interview a few weeks ago with Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials in Newark, Delaware, but I haven’t heard anything since. Nothing may come from that, but who knows?

So this week, it’s more applications, more resumes, and looking into short-term positions in both Raleigh and Chicago. A cursory glance at Manpower Technical yielded pretty much nothing, but there’s other services and other possibilities out there. Also, I need to pay the mid-month bills, and verify the exact steps I need to follow to tap into my 401(k). Later this week, we’re going to head over to Six String Cafe to catch The Kennedys, and probably hit one of a couple new restaurants for dinner on Friday. Life goes on!

Swingin’ Belleville rendezvous….

And if it gets stuck in your head, you can at least take comfort that others feel your pain.

Want a minute-by-minute update of what’s going on in the Massachusetts state house with their debate about gay marriage and amending their state constitution? I strongly recommend The Third Avenue, a weblog authored by an aide to one of the Massachusetts delegates. Compelling and informative reading.

Not a lot to say right now.

Busy past week. Bottled Donald’s beers. Kegged my spiced ale (yum!). Geeked on Survivor All-Stars.
We drove to Philadelphia and hung out with unclekage and Giza. Takaza covered the trip well in his journal. Very fun! Thanks Kage and Giza for a great weekend.

Not going to have a lot of online time this week – I’m working 40 hours at Silvia d’Italia, filling in for a vacationing cow-orker. Hey, it’s money I wouldn’t have otherwise and the work isn’t particularly demanding, so what the heck?

I came home, dead on my feet, and Dan had already gone to the store, put in the last load of laundry, and is now making homemade mac-and-cheese, as well as a tasty apple crisp. I am so damn lucky to have such a wonderful husband!